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TNPC for 01 August 2006…
By DanB | August 18, 2006
TNPC Newsletter
by Dan Butler
01 August, 2006
Hello
Short issue today. First a way for you to pick up one of my
books for free, the winner of our drawing, and a rant about
email. Okay I only rant a little then give you some simple steps
to help get control over your email.
Be sure to read last weeks TNPC at the blog:
http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/2006/08/01/tnpc-for-25-july-2006/
** Get a free book
A few months back I gave away copies of my book “Tame Your
Email”. I am doing that again and this time you get a choice of
books. Hurry though - it is only for Tuesday and Wednesday - I
will you why at the site:
http://www.audioacrobat.com/note/CyXVSYgQ/
** Drawing Winner
This months drawing winner is Cheryl Hadley. Her prize is
already on the way. How can you enter the next drawing? Details
next week.
** Ranting about Email
I am frustrated. Someone wants you to send them an email. The
next thing you know there is a rejection notice from their
server saying that you are not on their email acceptance list.
What is up with that? The rejection email also asks you to send
another email to be put on the acceptance list.
In my book “Tame Your Email” I make a distinction between
accepting responsibility for your email versus putting the
burden on your friends and family. Too many “solutions” are
really at the core of what they are saying. “I have a problem, I
don’t want to fix it, so I will inconvenience you instead.”
The technical name for these systems is challenge/response.
Challenge/response works really well in some applications.
Passwords are a good example of challenge/response put to a good
use and email isn’t one of the them.
To be accurate the system causing my frustration is not strictly
challenge/response. Why? I can’t respond. It challenges me but
doesn’t give the option to respond.
Compare this to your phone. What if I gave you my phone number
and asked you to give me call. When you call you get a recording
that says “I’m sorry I don’t know who you are so I am not going
to take your phone call.” How would you feel? I think the answer
is obvious.
Yet people do the same thing everyday with email. Here’s the
kicker - those type of systems cause you to lose more legitimate
email while doing nothing to stem the flow. Nothing. Except clog
up the networks with thousands of worthless emails asking people
who will never respond to - uh, respond.
Can you tell I really don’t like these type of systems?
If you use one of these systems please reconsider. What are some
popular iterations of this - Choicemail, ZoneAlarm, and
SpamArrest are what I see most frequently.
We all have email frustrations. So what can you do? Get a handle
on your email. Set up some basic filters for your email. Install
a good Bayesian based spam filter. Check your spam folder for
good email.
Sounds simple right? Well it is.
Here is a simple example of a filter. I have a list of words
that I don’t ever want to see in my inbox. If you send a message
with one of those words my system simply deletes it. Last time I
looked that filter deleted 120 messages a day on average. I know
that sounds like a lot. The volume of mail flowing through my
system is larger than most.
So what is on the list? Any word I find offensive and alternate
spellings of the words, many major drugs that I don’t take or
buy through email, some subject lines I see frequently, and a
few others. The list is pretty specific to me. I just counted
and there are 166 items in the list.
Caution: Set your filter to move messages to a folder rather
than delete. Check the folder for a few weeks until you are
comfortable that you aren’t catching good email.
Another simple filter is to put your discussion lists into
folders. That is pretty simple. Take it one step further. Some
people on discussion lists have better answers than others. Set
your filters to highlight their messages so you can read them
first.
Note: If you don’t know how to set up filters and you have my
email book just look on the main menu. You will find step-by-
step instructions for setting filters in all the major email
programs.
Now go to your Inbox and set rules to highlight email from the
important people in your life. Read those emails first.
There you have three simple rule sets you can implement in
almost any email client:
- Delete or move email with offensive words
- Move mailing lists to specific folders
- Highlight people you like to read mail from
These three rules can dramatically speed up your reading of
email. Remember - spend your time on the good email and not the
bad email.
Next get a handle on spam. This is pretty simple. Get a good
Bayesian based filter - Popfile and K9 are what I recommend in
my book. If you use Mozilla Thunderbird use the built in filter.
Same with Eudora. For everything else get one of the two I just
mentioned. Where do you find them?
PopFile
http://popfile.sourceforge.net
Note: K9 will appear to be old. That’s okay. Bayesian filtering
works off a mathematical formula using statistics. The formula
hasn’t changed and the program works just fine.
Both programs are free and very effective. Give them two weeks
and you will be very pleasantly surprised with the results.
The beauty of the Bayesian systems is they learn over time. When
the spammers change subject lines the system teaches itself how
to spot the new spam. When they change things in the body of the
email the system learns.
How well does this work? My wife and I see exactly zero unwanted
emails in our inbox on a daily basis. We found one spam about a
month ago. We lose zero legitimate emails. How do I know? I look
through the junk folder for good email! It isn’t pretty. A good
email occasionally ends up in the junk folder. When I look at
the folder the good email usually sticks out like a sore thumb.
When you find a good email in your junk folder simply train the
filter to move the email to the inbox and go on. Takes a few
seconds at most.
How much spam does my system catch? A few thousand a day. I hope
you don’t have to deal with that sort of volume.
What if you find a junk email in your inbox? It is almost the
same process: train the filter and move the email to the trash.
Since the message is junk there is not reason to store it
anywhere but in the trash.
If you use Mozilla Thunderbird you will see a button on the
toolbar to toggle the status of messages a junk or good. Pretty
simple.
So what set me off on this rant? My middle son went to camp this
year. One of the parents offered to email pictures to anyone who
wanted them. “Just email me and I will send them right out” he
said. Sounds good right? It was - until the email bounced since
we aren’t in his address book.
Just like that a simple kindness turns into a time consuming,
frustrating game of phone tag. It would have been easier and
less time consuming to drive to his home and pick up the photos.
Multiply this by the thirty or forty people to whom he made this
offer and you begin to see how a minor problem quickly
compounds.
Don’t let this be you. Set up some simple rules in your email
client. Get a good Bayesian filter working - it isn’t that
difficult and it is free. Don’t make other people take care of
your problem for you. After two weeks guess what? You will find
you are spending your time on personal email instead of dealing
with the spam. Now that is a good feeling.
Questions, tips, or comments? Share them at the TNPC Forum:
http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/discuss/
Next issue I will tell you a simple thing you can do to
dramatically increase your productivity and decrease your
frustration with email.
~ Dan
–
© 2006 Dan Butler
Dan Butler is the Editor-in-Chief of TNPCNewsletter.com and the
author of the amazing new book that shows you how to save your
identity, get your email read, and put more time into the things
you really enjoy…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tired of fighting identity thieves? Tired of all that junk in
your email box? Want to have your messages seen by the people
that matter? “Tame Your Email” reveals the secrets to taking
control of your inbox while leaving the thieves and spammers
out of sight and out of mind.
http://www.TameYourEmail.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+++———– Recommended Resources ————————+++
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Effective Internet Business. Give it a look:
http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/p/quickbiz/
+++———————————————————–+++
“How To Get Anything You Want,Starting Today, With 11 Simple
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Okay so that is a big claim - and the sales letter reads a little
hypey. But this course is fun and you see real results quickly.
I am sharing it with my family now and we are having fun going
through it together.
http://www.banabu.com/cmd.php?af=391576
+++———————————————————–+++
I use this software all the time to look up personal information
about myself and others. A friend of mine used it to research
the former owners of a property for title purposes. I have used
it for years.
http://zcat.com/qpp/x.php?adminid=8&tid=9
+++———————————————————–+++
Copyright 2006 Dan Butler
All Rights Reserved.
ISSN: 1522-4422
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One Response to “TNPC for 01 August 2006…”
Comments
« TNPC for 25 July 2006… | Home | Big Monitors Can Increase Productivity? »
August 24th, 2006 at 11:57 am
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